


The Battle Begone

by mariuspondmercy



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Meetings, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariuspondmercy/pseuds/mariuspondmercy
Summary: In which Cosette is in love with a man she's never spoken to, believes in love at first sight and sometimes has violent metaphors to describe her admiration.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: 2020 Brick ReNouveauTions





	The Battle Begone

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this was so much fun! A modern retelling of "The Battle Begun" - in which Cosette discovers her revengeful side and does not approach Marius - except in a modern AU, she does.

Some days, Cosette felt like she didn’t exist to the outside world. Or rather: in the outside world. It hadn’t been as bad in the convent. There, she’d had all of her friends in one spot, had all of her lessons in the same place, had a very short way home. At uni, it was all a bit different. She had mates in class, people she hung out with between classes or for study groups and she got on with most of the people she regularly saw, but she barely ever met anyone outside of university. And it was fine, really. She was busy doing things with her dad anyway. Like going to church, which, apparently, wasn’t a thing any of her uni friends did. 

But not having a smartphone was sort of her social downfall. Sure, there were plenty of people who didn’t have Facebook or Instagram, but they were still reachable via WhatsApp. Cosette didn’t have that. So Cosette was in no group chats, was not part of any sort of after-uni-conversations. Sometimes, people would text her, because usually all phone plans still had unlimited texting which no-one used anyway. 

So, why not get a smartphone? Well, her father had taught Cosette early on that smartphones were just a way for the government and the police to spy on people. Especially such communication apps would sell your data and then your identity could get stolen and misused, leading to you ending up in prison or having to fight in court, which would cost a lot of money. In addition, she had been taught from a young age to value the outdoors, to find joy in helping other people, to find comfort in a good book or some poetry. Her father was not a big fan of movies or the cinema, though they did have a Netflix account and enjoyed watching documentaries or the odd show together. Her papa was especially fond of any kind of baking competition - especially since Cosette baked quite well herself. She’d found inspiration in a lot of those shows, trying unconventional things and sharing them with her papa, the people at church or her acquaintances at university. 

Still, it meant three things which sometimes were hard for Cosette:

  * she was usually left out of conversations and missed a lot of inside jokes and references her friends made;
  * she had no idea about meme culture;
  * she had no online stalking skill whatsoever. 



Especially the last one was on her mind a lot lately. Or rather: the object of her interest was on her mind a lot lately. She had seen him a few times at the library and in the park, but having no online stalking skills and no online presence meant Cosette was in no position to ever find him - and he could not find her, either. 

Cosette was lonely. It had taken a long time for her to admit it to herself. Despite having her papa, the people at church, the casual friendships at uni, Cosette was lonely. But this man, he had set something alight in her and she wanted the fire to burn brighter than ever before. 

She did consider setting up a Facebook or Instagram account, have a look in these “spotted” groups she’s heard people talk about. But… but it felt like betraying her papa. Sure, she didn’t have to tell him about it, but was Cosette really going to lie to her father, who had always taught her to value truth above everything else? Then again, she knew he hid his troubled past behind badly concealed lies. 

Anyway.

Cosette was ready to be set alight by love. So many romantic comedies and Christmas movies have been written around love at first sight, it had become an overused and mocked trope - yet Cosette believed in the power of a glance, how it can struck you down in an instant. After all, it had happened to her. This is how people fall in love: their eyes meet and they are inevitably linked for all eternity. She was certain he felt the same way. There had been a spark, a fire lit, thunder and lightning upon the first glance. Call it fate, magic, Providence - Cosette knew it to be love. 

She had observed the object of her interest the way women always do - or at least the way she’s learned it from numerous romantic movies she’s seen in her childhood. Women observe without being seen. Which, of course, Cosette knew that wasn’t true and was also some really dumb sexist bullshit - yet she couldn’t seem to avert her eyes whenever he would look over in her direction. Sometimes, at the library, she’d even pick a spot on the same floor he was on, strategically placed so she could see him but would be hard to spot in return. Was that kind of stalkerish? Yeah… maybe. Maybe it was just true love. Occasionally, Cosette did feel bad about it, weirded out by herself but… he was just so pretty. 

When the sun was just setting, shining through the library’s windows at just the right angle, his hair began to shine like a halo. His usually dark curls began to shimmer in copper, gold, mahogany and redwood. She was mesmerized by the red undertones of the softest-looking hair she’d ever seen in her life. It was breathtaking and no-one could possibly blame her for looking. 

And his eyes! His eyes were a lightning strike catching a barren tree on fire, and the soothing sea at once. The deep hazel warmed Cosette, the green shining through was her fresh breeze on a hot summer’s day. She could drown in those eyes and not regret it for a second. Yet there was nothing more alluring than his laughter. Usually, he sat alone in the library but sometimes a man with bouncy curls would pick him up after a few hours. Other times, a strangely familiar woman brought him coffee and joined him for an hour or so. And sometimes, a bald man would sit next to him, spilling whatever it was he was holding at that moment - pens, apples, tea, and on one memorable occasion, a small kitten fell out of his pocket. It was endearing, yet confusing. 

When the weather was hot and exams weren’t right around the corner, the love of Cosette’s life would sit in the park close to university with those friends - and a few more, but Cosette hardly paid attention to them. She was too focused on picking out his voice in the general cacophony of voices. He didn’t talk much, but he laughed a lot at his friends’ antics. And every time he laughed - Cosette was sure of it - an angel was born. God, his laugh was just the perfect amount of honey in a warm cup of tea on a rainy autumn night. Cosette would do everything to hear him laugh more often. He also had weirdly nice teeth, something Cosette didn’t really want to spend too much time thinking about. It was odd to consider teeth nice; unless you were a dentist, maybe. But she had no ambition to become a dentist. 

Maybe he was going to be a dentist. He looked smart. Yes, he always held himself in a slightly awkward way, but he did have a certain noblesse about him. And okay, maybe his clothes were awkward-fitting, his stuff wasn’t as new as his friends’ stuff - or Cosette’s stuff, for that matter - but he at least looked honest. Could people look honest? Well, his laugh certainly sounded honest. His simplicity paired with his noblesse intrigued Cosette. 

And yet. 

And yet he’d seen her before but not  _ seen _ her. On the fateful day of him noticing her finally, Cosette didn’t realise it at first, but after sleeping over it for a night, Cosette knew one thing: she was kind of pissed at him. How come she had been in love for ages and he had only noticed her after she’d cut and dyed her hair, after she’d decided she was gorgeous? She wasn’t sure she was too happy about his change in attitude. Part of her, the part she usually tried to push down and ignore, wanted to take revenge. 

Cosette wasn’t dumb. She knew she had certain qualities she could use to her advantage when trying to make someone notice her. She was not some innocent little damsel in distress. Yes, she’d grown up in a convent until she was 16 and even after, she’s been to an all-girls Catholic school run by nuns - but she hadn’t lived in solitude. There’d been other girls. Cosette knew things.

So, really, she could taunt the love of her life a bit, make him taste his own medicine for once. But… he was just so cute! And seemed so genuine! Plus, Cosette was smitten. She wanted to get to know him, not toy with him. 

Cosette sighed quietly and leaned back on her park bench. She had not taken in anything of her book at all, thoughts too full with confusing men and not-so-sudden sudden realisations. She wanted him, even if he’d taken his sweet time to notice her. She wanted to know if he was really as genuine as she believed him to be. She wanted to be the one to make him laugh. She wanted to get to know everything about him - what was his favourite animal, did he like plants, what did he study, what was his go-to take-out order, which comfort movie calmed him down the most? Cosette just really needed to get to know this man who had so wholly, irrevocably, viciously captured her soul. 

Coincidentally, just as Cosette looked up to grab her phone from her backpack and check the time, the infamous hero of her nightly dreams strode around the corner. Well, it was not much of a corner, not in the park but… Cosette had simply not seen him earlier. Maybe this wasn’t a coincidence after all. Maybe it was fate, something akin to Providence, as some authors would have you believe. Cosette quickly stuffed her book, notebook and pen into her backpack and got up, confidently making her way over to him; he had stopped to examine a tree. 

On the way to him, in her haste, Cosette’s shoe got caught on a stray stone. In what would’ve been a dramatised slow-motion movie scene, Cosette saw her unzipped backpack fly out of her hands and skitter across the dirty pathway, spilling everything. She watched in horror as her small can of Play-Doh (perfect for stressful situations, but of no use right now) rolled right against her dream guy’s foot. 

“I am so sorry!” Cosette quickly dusted herself off and tried stuffing everything back. 

“It’s alright,” the honeyed voice of a thousand angels came to her. He knelt down and handed her some pens as well as her can of Play-Doh. “Perfect for stressful situations”, the mystery man said with a smile. 

Beneath his barely visible freckles, Cosette could make out a faint blush. As if he could get even more beautiful! Cosette felt herself blush as well as their hands brushed when he handed back the Play-Doh can. The electric heat running through Cosette told her everything she needed to know: love at first sight truly existed.


End file.
